one year, as some small reparation for the terrible losses and sufferings they had experienced. From this word “forever” the Winnebagoes perhaps took courage.
At the time of their removal from Minnesota, among the fugitives who fled back to Wisconsin was the chief De Carry. He died there, two years later, in great poverty. He was very old, but remarkably intelligent; he was the grandson of Ho-po-ko-e-kaw, or “Glory of the Morning,” who was the queen of the Winnebagoes in 1776, when Captain Carver visited the tribe. There is nothing in Carver's quaint and fascinating old story more interesting than his account of the Winnebago conntry. He stayed with them four days, and was entertained by them “in a very distinguished manner.” Indeed, if we may depend upon Captain Carver's story, all the North-western tribes were, in their own country, a gracious and hospitable people. He says: “I received from every tribe of them the most hospitable and courteous treatment, and am convinced that, till they are contaminated by the example and spirituous liquors of their more refined neighbors, they will retain this friendly and inoffensive conduct toward strangers.”
He speaks with great gusto of the bread that the Winnebago women made from the wild maize. The soft young kernels, while full of milk, are kneaded into a paste, the cakes wrapped in bass-wood leaves, and baked in the ashes. “Better flavored bread I never ate in any country,” says the honest captain.
He found the Winnebagoes’ home truly delightful. The shores of the lake were wooded with hickory, oak, and hazel. Grapes, plums, and other fruits grew in abundance. The lake abounded in fish; and in the fall of the year with geese, ducks, and teal, the latter much better flavored than those found nearer the sea, as they “acquire their excessive fatness by feeding on the wild rice which grows so plentifully in these parts.”
How can we bear to contrast the picture of this peace,
